The summer transfer window has been closed for a month, but around Arsenal, inevitably, it still infuses every narrative. The latest one will unfold Tuesday night at Emirates Stadium, when Arsenal takes on Napoli in the Champions League: a story of two summer signings. On one side, there is Mesut Özil, the big-name playmaker that Arsenal broke the bank to acquire from Real Madrid. And, on the other, there is Argentina striker Gonzalo Higuaín, the player Arsenal wanted before he joined Napoli instead. Their combined transfer fees exceeded $100 million.

With three assists in four games, Özil has already made an impact for Arsenal, just as Higuaín certainly would have too. But another one of Arsenal's summer signings is showing that impact doesn't have to cost a fortune: midfielder Mathieu Flamini, a 29-year-old who cost exactly nothing.

After his AC Milan contract expired over the summer, Flamini asked to train with Arsenal, his club from 2004 to 2008. The idea was to stay in shape during his job-hunt. As it turned out, he didn't have to hunt very far.

"Many people questioned us when we did that," said Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, who is known for signing promising young talent, not older known quantities. "But since he plays, he has done very well. Overall, I think the most important is the balance of the team."

In recent years, Arsenal has been accused of lacking that equilibrium between stylish attacking players and defensive enforcers. Too often, more physical opponents found the team could simply be bullied into some kind of defensive calamity.

But this season, without compromising Arsenal's trademark passing philosophy, Wenger has found a solution to complement his usual crop of stylish attacking players with a little more resilience in midfield.

"We have many players who can play this role," Wenger said Monday, highlighting the work of Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey, who is currently in the form of his life playing alongside Özil.

But they don't all do the job the same way. Ramsey has played a more offensively minded game this season, even though he is among the Premier League leaders in tackles per game with 5.5. More intriguing is the comparison between Arteta, who mainly played in the holding midfield spot last season, and Flamini, who has occupied it lately in his absence. Look at where on the field they touch the ball most and the difference between them becomes obvious.

Last season, Arteta took 13.1 % of his touches in the attacking third, while Flamini had 10.8% in four league appearances this year, according to data from Opta Sports. Another 14.2% of Arteta's possession came in his own defensive third. But Flamini, in stark contrast, has the ball in the defensive third almost 27.28% of the time.

ENLARGE

And still, from that position, Flamini average more touches of the ball in a match than all but two of his teammates—Ramsey and Özil.

Flamini isn't just passing the ball around back there, either. In a tough game against Stoke City last month, Flamini put his qualities as an organizer on display. Even with the ball at the other end of the field, he spat orders constantly, rearranging defenders and gesticulating at opposing runs that hadn't happened yet.

Wander into his patch of the field and he'll tell you, in no uncertain terms, where you should be.

"I'm never surprised by the improvement of the players," Wenger said. In this case, he was answering a question about striker Olivier Giroud, but it could easily apply to half a dozen members of his squad so far this season. "It gives me a little bit the feeling that we do the right things with the players, so I don't want to diminish that too much."

Because he's never been the most technically gifted player, Flamini's traditional statistics don't jump off the page. (Which could be why his profile on the statistical website WhoScored.com harshly states, "Player has no significant strengths.") His run-constantly, hound-anything-that-moves approach is also the reason he has made only a handful of appearances for the French national team, which tends to favor technical maestros in midfield over equally valuable mop-up men like Flamini.

During his first stint with Arsenal, Flamini had more yellow cards (21) in over 150 appearances than he had goals (8) and assists (8) combined. And yet, AC Milan saw enough to snap him up in 2008. Flamini has what the Italians call "grinta," a word for aggressive determination that, fittingly, is also used to describe fast cars.

There, too, his disciplinary record ran longer than his scoring distinctions. That probably isn't in his job description for this stint at Arsenal. Though if it were, he'd be on the money already. In three league starts, he has no goals, no assists, three yellows.

It's not the typical formula for an Arsenal midfielder, but with Arsenal off to its best start in six years, it's working.

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